Christmas with the fam at the ranch

Sigh. Another Christmas at the ranch with many relatives I have nothing in common with. I suppose that's typical. They all asked me if I lift weights.  One woman asked me if I was going to be a doctor, and I was like "yeah, but not a medical doctor" and she started to go on and on about some celebrity doctor guy, and asking "have you heard of him?"  I'm like "no, but I'm not going to be a medical doctor." She's like "oh but he's a chiropractor...blah blah blah".  I just listened - what was I going to say?

Dinner wasn't that fun...

My uncle (the one who writes letters to the newspaper about how global warming is a conspiracy) asked me how I KNOW that the Sierra Nevada lakes were historically fishless.  Put on the spot like that, I'm like "I just know..." and he's like "HAhahaHAhah".  I was thinking about it later and I could come up with a ton of evidence (fossil record, geology and hydrology, native american historical records, the fact that stocked fish do not produce a viable population in the long-term, frogs and other insects that were once everywhere cannot survive in the presence of trout, etc.), but putting me on the spot like that, and asking me a question that I liken to "how do you KNOW the world is round" I came up empty handed. If I were writing it in a paper I think it would be classified as "common knowledge" and not need a citation. This is good practice for...talking to people who are...ignorant? In the moment though, it totally frosts my cookies.  I can appreciate an honest question, but not ones that seem specifically designed to elicit condescending laughter for the benefit of the asker.

Glory glory hallelujah, praise baby jesus that my dad has this little Verizon portable wireless thingie so I can connect to the internet. I know it's sad that without the interwebs I'm completely bored, but to be fair it is dumping rain outside, so cut me some slack. I did bring my rain pants and rain shell though, so maybe I'll walk around in the mud and cow shit later. I hope his Verizon thingie doesn't charge by the minute...

Fortunately it did not dump rain yesterday afternoon, so I had some time to find a bunch of mushrooms.  Pictures will be coming.

I might go visit Ethan in SF tomorrow on the way home. If I'm not going to climb at Jailhouse Monday or Tuesday, I may as well get a good workout at MC. Plus I haven't seen him since before he went to China. Should be fun to hang out and hear about the trip.  I'm looking at plane tickets for Europe right now...I'd like to meet up with people for a month or so in the Spring. Maybe even 6 weeks! If not, I'll take another trip. I'd really like to go to Greece.

The clock just struck 10. My grandma (and my aunts and uncles) all have this clock on the wall that pipes a song on the hour, every hour.  And yay! There's a Christmas setting!  I don't think that I would like knowing when each hour of my life passes while I'm sitting in my house.  Kind of grim.

So, now just an interminable afternoon of looking outside at the rain, a dinner, more present opening (always awkward), and then I'm bailing tomorrow.

By the way, this is for James. Enjoy your Chinese turkey!

Merry Christmas and stuff to everyone!